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45^ 



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I LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, | 



Chap. 

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UNITED STATES OF/AMERICA 



? ^^2^;,;r'^:^;;:g:^^:^g;^c*^2^^ag:; ^ 



^Ije jFrtt Cljnstutii State anb tljc Jlrcstnt .Struggle. 



AN ADDRESS 



DELITERED BEFORE THE 



A.SBOCIA-TIO]Sr 



ALUMNI OF BOWDOIN COLLEGE, 



GEORGE L. PRENTISS, 






A.TJC3-XTST S, ISSl. 




C< Co 

I» TJ B L I S H E D BY ^V. H . JB I 3D ^VV^ E IL, L , 

AT THE OFFICE OF THE AMERICAN THEOLOGICAL KETIEW, 

No. 5 Beekman Street. 
1 8 G 1 . 







.1 



BowDoix College, August 8th, 1801. 

Rev. Geo. L. Prextiss, D.D. : 

Dear Sir : At the close of the Address delivered by you this daj', ])o- 

fore the Association of the Alumni of Bowdoin College, it was voted 

unanimously, the audience rising in concurrence, " That the thanks of the 

Association be presented to the Rev. Dr. Prentiss, for his refreshing and 

eloquent Address on the Free Christian State, and a copy be requested for 

the press." 

In behalf of the Alumni Association, 

EGBERT C. SMYTH, Secretary. , 



Newport, August 13th, 1861. 

My Dear Sir : I cheerfully comply with the request of the Association 
of the Alumni, and hereby place the Address at their disposal. 

Yours, most truly, 

GEO. L. PRENTISS. 

Prof E. C. Smyth, Secretary. 



ADDRESS 



Me. Peesident and Beetiieen of the Alujvini : 

It has been customary, on occasions like tlie present, 
to discuss some topic of general literary interest, or as 
was so liapi^ily done at your meeting three }'ears ago,* 
to re^T-ve the j)leasant memories and rehearse the honors 
of our Alma Mater. But I shall offer no apology for de- 
parting fi'om this custom to-day. The stern realities 
of the hour suggest a subject coming home more di- 
rectly to our business and bosoms. Heretofore we have 
met to look each other in the face and take sweet 
counsel too-ether as old friends and sons of Bowdoiu : 
to-day we meet rather as fellow-citizens and eonmion 
children of the imj)eriUed rej)ublic ; and it is our coun- 
try which claims our first and chief thought. 

Without farther preface, then, allow me to speak to 
you of the Free Christian State, as developed in the his- 
tory and institutions of our Union, and of the dangers 
which beset it.f A free state is the grandest phenome- 
non of civilization. It is one of the rarest also. Of the 



* In an address by Professor Packard, entitled, " Our Alma Mater. " 
t I here use the word state, of course, in the most comprehensive sense, 
and include in it the family, and the temporal institution of the Church also. 
In its spiritual character, as ''the mystical body of Christ,"' the Cliurch 
rises far above all earthly states, belongs to no country or age, and is iden- 
tical with the everlasting kingdom of God. 



6 

host of governments wMcli liave risen and disappeared 
in tlie course of time, only one here and there could be 
called free. The same may be said of those now exist- 
ing. Of the five great powers, for example, which rule 
the Old World, nobody, certainly, would pretend that 
more than one is, in the proper sense of the term, a free 
country. Certain forms and degrees of liberty exist, 
no doubt, in the other four, especially in France and 
Prussia. But in England alone is liberty fairly domesti- 
cated, guarded by law and incorporated with the whole 
life of the nation ; in England alone is liberty a great 
popular institution and chartered right. And still it 
can not be denied that even in England we have but an 
imperfect specimen of civil liberty. The idea of a free, 
Christian state has never yet been absolutely realized, 
nor dare we expect it ever will be until that blessed 
consummation, predicted and longed for l^y saint and 
sage, when the reign of Divine Justice shall have been 
fully established on earth. In speaking of our own 
country, then, I shall be far enough from assuming that 
it is the ideal of a free or a Christian state. If it were, 
we should not be engaged in mortal struggle for its ex- 
istence. In order to appreciate and enjoy our inestimable 
civil blessings, we need not claim a monopoly of them, 
nor that we possess them as yet, in all their perfection. 
This is no time to indulge in idle boasting and self con- 
ceit. Freedom is one of the old, tutelary divinities of 
the race. We ought not to suppose that this is her 
only or her last abode. Enough that she has always 
loved to dwell here, and that here she inspired our 
fathers to rear for her a temple more capacious than 
was ever built before ; an ever-expanding Union of 
well-ordered, constitutional government, which stretches 
already across the continent. 

I shall attempt no elaborate analysis of the nature of 



the state and of its difterent forms. The scope of my 
argument does not require it. There are certain great 
principles which lie at the foundation of all true govern- 
ment, whatever its name. They are common to mon- 
archy and to the republic. The reason and experience 
of mankind agree in declaring them to be immutable. 
They cannot be set at naught without involving society 
itself in ruins. They are written in such large and 
plain characters on the whole course of nature, that he 
who runs may read them. They are as old as man ; 
yea, as the throne of God. Such essential organizing 
principles are law, order, justice, obedience and truth. 
Without these, government is only another name for 
anarchy or despotism. They are the adamantine pillars 
upon which repose all good things in earth and heaven. 
It is because the free Christian state is based u])on and 
embodies such divine principles that we are entitled to 
call it the noblest phenomenon of civilization. In fact, 
it is civilization in visible strength, order and splendor. 
There is nothing else on earth so august or so puissant. 
It is the bright, consummate flower of a nation's life ; 
" the Sabbath and port of all its labors and peregrina- 
tions." What varied powers conspire to form and en- 
rich it ! Nothing less than the intelligence, virtue, 
piety, industry, art, philosoj^hy, learning and experience 
of the race. For, as it is the grandest, so also is it the 
slowest and most difficult growth of time. It is no ex- 
halation of the morn, Init ages are required to produce 
it. Ere it comes to its full birth, a j^eople must have 
groaned and travailed together in pain for generations. 
It can no more be improvised than a personal character 
like Washington's, with all its wealth of ripened virtue 
and patriotism, can be foi-med in a day. How little 
the most thoughtful of us consider what a long and 
painful history lies back of every civil privilege we en- 



joy ! tlirougli what storms, and over what rougli seas 
society has reached one port of safety after another ! 

In passing now to the special topic of this address, 
let me prepare the way by substituting for a moment 
in place of that somewhat formal term, the State, the 
more familiar term. Our Country. This is a household 
word, and intelligible alike to man, woman and child. It 
recalls at once the magnificent heritage of government, 
freedom, intelligence and religion, bequeathed to us by 
our venerated ancestors. These, in truth, make our 
country. They are its sj^iritual essence, its living soul. 
They clothe it with dignity and honor. They render it 
an object second only to the Divine Grovernmeut itself 
in its claim upon our love and self-devotion. What is 
our country but another name for constitutional lilDerty, 
for authority founded in truth and uprightness, for the 
family and the church, in a word, for all the pre- 
cious immunities and privileges of Christian society ? 
Without these, it would be a mere geographical term, 
a name for so much area of land and water. But trans- 
figured by these humanizing agencies, fashioned out of a 
rude mass of earth into stately forms of culture and 
civility, it rises far above all local description, and be- 
comes the home and mighty rampart of our dearest 
rights and aifections. It is a moral as well as physical 
entity ; and as such, can stretch forth its protecting arm 
to the ends of the earth. The starry emblem of its au- 
thority floats round the world. It is endoAved with a 
kind of omnipresence ; for wherever beats the heart of 
a loyal American citizen, there is a pulsation of the 
nation's life. In this sense our country follows her 
children wherever they go. She attends the ministers 
of her will in royal and imperial courts. ^\Tiatever 
distant seas are ploughed by her ships of -war, or of 
peaceful trade, her aegis is over them. She accompanies 



5 

our faitliful missionaries as they go to plant tlie banner 
of tlie cross upon the strongholds of pagan error and 
superstition. She is, indeed, the strong protector, as 
she is the benignant mother, of us all. Allegiance to 
her is part of that religious fealty which we owe to the 
eternal Sovereign of the universe. Such is our country : 
the home and shrine of the sweetest charities and affec- 
tions of our nature ; the divinely appointed sphere of a 
thousand weighty duties ; the guardian and pledge of 
our noblest temporal hopes and interests. "Without it 
we should be shelterless, home-sick wanderers on the 
face of the earth ; our social faculties, " rusting in us 
unused," would bear naught but thorns and thistles, 
instead of ripening into those generous public \di*tues 
which are the fountain of so much happiness and honor 
to the race ; our high hopes for our children w^ould 
vanish into thin air, or rather, they would be changed 
into gloomy fears and forebodings. Yes, robbed of our 
country, of its government and laws, its freedom and 
fair humanities, our condition would be as if 

" The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, 
The solemn temples, the great globe itself ; 
Yea, all which it inherit, should dissolve." 

This great American system of liberty and social or- 
der, like our mother tongue, is a marvellous compo- 
site of old and new. It is enriched by the sj^oils of 
all time. Hardly any great state, ancient or modern, 
but has contributed something to its generous and fair 
proportions. What would it be if bereft of all it 
o^ves to the legislation of Moses, and the Hebrew Serij)- 
tures ; to the democratic spirit, literature, and heroic 
examples of Greece ; or to the laws and jurisj^rudence of 
republican and imperial Rome? It strikes its roots 
deep into the mediaeval and early Christian ages. The 



10 

best polities of modern Europe helped to form it. Tlie 
fountain from wliicli it drew, and still draws, its lioliest 
principles and inspiration, is tlie New Testament. 

Never since tlie beginning of tlie world was a peo- 
ple allovved ampler scope, freely to avail itself of all tlie 
lights of history, and all the aids of reflection, in con- 
structing a system of national polity ; and never had a 
people a richer experience of its own, or a more inval- 
uable body of existing laws and institutions wherewith 
to give harmony, strength, and perpetuity to the new 
structure. For, undoubtedly, the power which, above 
all others, inspired and shaped our republican system 
was the old Anglican liberty, which our fathers brought 
with them across the ocean. This, together with the 
institutions which have given it its marvellous vitality 
and strength in the mother country, such as municipal 
and local self-government, the town-meeting, the county 
court, popular suffrage and rej)resentation, the common 
law, the constable, trial by jury, the local church, the 
college, the Puritan Sabbath, and the old English Bible 
— this was and is the noblest substance of our national 
life. It is a mistake to suppose that our liberty is the 
fruit of the Revolutionary war. In that war we fought 
for and won our Independence ; but our most important 
liberties are a venerable heir-loom of the Anglo-Saxon 
race. They were won for us at Runnymede, and on 
many a later field, renowned in the annals of British 
freedom. They were among those " true, ancient, and 
indubitable rights and liberties " of the people of Eng- 
land, asserted and claimed in their memorable Bill of 
Rights. Our Declaration of Independence was virtu- 
ally a reassertion of these same " ancient rights and 
liberties." The Articles of Confederation were an at- 
tempt to combine and establish them in a " perpetual 
Union;" and finally the Constitution of the United 



11 

Stcates organized them into our present system of na- 
tional government. But, altliougli the substance of our 
liberties was the most precious inheritance which the 
infant nation brought with it, I need not say how great- 
ly they were increased and invigorated under the hardy 
discipline of the colonial period, and during the terri- 
ble trials of the war of Independence ; or liow, when 
the time w^as fully ripe, they were at length perfected 
in the great Constitution under which we now live. 
This Constitution was the work of men preeminent for 
public msdom, zeal, prudence, and magnanimity ; men 
deeply versed in the philosophy of government, 

" Looking before and after '' 

Long reflection, aided by much study and experience, 
had endowed them with a political sagacity almost in- 
tuitive ; and in all this they only represented the en- 
lightened popular instincts of the country. A more 
upright, single-hearted, admirable body of patriots 
never sat in council. They were worthy to be presided 
over by Washington. 

" Great men were then among us ; hands that penned 
And tongues that uttered wisdom ; better none. 

They knew how genuine glory was put on ; 
Taught us how rightfully a nation shone 
In splendor." 

As we now look back and review their labors in the 
light of liistory, it seems little short of miraculous that 
they committed so few serious errors. The Constitu- 
tion formed by these master-builders was intended, as 
has been intimated, to recapitulate and combine into 
one political system the substantial existing I'ights, lib- 
erties, and institutions of the countiy ; adding what 
seemed needful and best fitted to crown the whole with 



12 

tlie unity, majesty, and force of national sovereignty. 
Such is the American Union. It took away from the 
several States little that had ever been theirs, except 
their weakness. It preserved and placed under better 
guaranties their local rights and authority. It gave 
them the freedom of the continent. This system has 
now been in operation nearly three quarters of a cen- 
tury, and its results are among the marvels of history. 
They have been the study of some of the deepest poli- 
tical thinkers and statesmen of modern times ; and, I 
doubt not, Aristotle himself would have pondered them 
with wonder and delight. Never before was the s^^irit 
of democratic freedom and equality combined with the 
highest principles of law and authority in a manner so 
grand and effective.* Could the illustrious statesmen, 
who formed the Constitution, come back to earth, they 
Avould be lost in awe and amazement at the fruit of 
their own labors. Could the people of the United 
States, who ordained and established it, revisit the 
scenes so dear to them, they would fall upon their knees 
in adoration of that Almighty Providence which ena- 
bled them to transmit to their children such a match- 
less heritage. So it would have been a little while ago. 
Now^ alas ! their grateful wonder and adoration would 
be turned into speechless grief, as they saw a portion 
of their posterity scornfully trampling that goodly her- 
itage under foot ! For that tJieij intended it should be 



* The remarkable testimony of the Emperor of Russia, published since 
the delivery of this address, deserves to be here cited : " For the more 
than eighty years that it has existed, the American Union owes its inde- 
pendence, its towering rise, and its progress, to the concord of its mem- 
bers, consecrated, under the auspices of its illustrious founder, by institu- 
tions which have been able to reconcile the Union with liberty. This 
Union has been faithful. It has exhibited to the world the sj^ectaclc of a 
prosperity xoithout example in the annals of history.''^ — Prince Gortscha- 
ko^''s Letter of July 10. 



13 

perpetual, no candid student of American history can 
doubt for an instant. One might as reasonably doubt 
whether they expected the continent itself would be 
perpetual, or that their posterity would continue always 
to inhabit it. They had taken infinite pains to con- 
struct a permanent government ; this had been, con- 
sciously or unconsciously, the aim of all their plans and 
toil ; this was the ruling idea of the old Confederation. 
The articles constituting it were called " Articles of Per- 
petual Union ;" and the last of them closes in this wise : 
" We do further solemnly plight and engage the faith 
of our respective constituents, . . that these Articles 
shall be inviolably observed by the States we respect- 
ively represent, and that the Union shall be perpe- 
tual." The experience of the Revolutionary war, and 
of the sad years immediately following, demonstrated 
that the Union thus formed was incapable of self-per- 
petuation. It was tainted with an incurable weakness. 
The famous Convention of 1787 was assembled to re- 
medy this defect ; and on the completion of their work 
it was adopted by the whole nation" as its own, in this 
simple but truly august style : 

" We, the People of the Uistited States, est order 

TO FORM A MORE PERFECT UkION, ESTABLISH JUSTICE, IN- 
SURE DOMESTIC TRANQUILLITY, PROVIDE FOR THE COMMON 
DEFENCE, PROMOTE THE GENERAL WELFARE, AND SECURE 
THE BLESSINGS OF LIBERTY TO OURSELVES AND OUR POS- 
TERITY, DO ORDAIN AND ESTABLISH TIHS CONSTITUTION FOR 

THE United States of America." 

He who can detect secession in this language, or 
in any of the articles which follow it, ought certainly 
to find no difficulty in proving from the Bible that 
there is no God ! The Constitution, you perceive, 
did not pretend to create the Union, Imt only to render 
it more perfect. On this point it may be worth while 



14 

to cite tlie very first sentences of the Federalist^ writ- 
ten, as you know, by Hamilton, Madison and Jay, and 
addressed to the people of New- York : " After full ex- 
perience of the insufficiency of the existing Federal 
Government, you are invited to deliberate upon a new 
Constitution for the United States of America. The 
subject speaks its own importance ; comprehending in 
its consequences nothing less than the existence [not 
the creation] of the Union ; the safety and welfare of 
the parts of which it is composed ; the fate of an em- 
pire, in many respects, the most interesting in the 
world." In the second number we read : " It is worthy 
of remark, that not only the first, but every succeeding 
Congress, as well as the late Convention, have invaria- 
bly joined with the people in thinking that the pros- 
perity of America depended on its Union. To preserve 
and perpetuate it was the great object of the people in 
forming that Convention ; and it is also the great ob- 
ject of the plan which the Convention has advised 
them to adopt. . . . They who promote the idea 
of substituting a number of distinct confederacies in 
the room of the plan of the Convention, seem clearly to 
foresee that the rejection of it would put the continu- 
ance of the Union in the utmost jeopardy ; that cer- 
tainly would be the case ; and I sincerely wish that if 
may be as clearly foreseen by every good citizen, that 
whenever the dissolution of the Union arrives, Amer- 
ica will have reason to exclaim, in the words of the 
poet : 

' Farewell ! a long farewell to all my greatness ! ' " 

Having alluded to the Federalist^ let me add that 
the statesmanlike pleas of this noble work in behalf of 
the Union, and its vivid pictures of the perils and 
woes of disunion, would still form one of the best pos- 



15 

sible tracts for tlie times. It seems as if tlie chapters, 
" Concerning dangers from war between the States," 
" The effects of internal war in producing standing ar- 
mies, and other institutions unfriendly to liberty," 
" The utility of the Union as a safeguard against do- 
mestic faction and insurrection," were written yester- 
day, rather than seventy years ago, so applicable are 
they to the present crisis. 

The politicians who favored the theory of distinct, 
independent confederacies — a theory never heard of 
until engendered amidst the heated and angry disputes 
consequent upon the Convention of '87 — opposed the 
new Constitution on the express ground that, once 
adopted, it for ever closed the door against their favor- 
ite doctrine. I doubt if the most dilio:ent research 
among the newsj^apers, pamphlets, popular addresses, 
and debates in State conventions during the period in 
question, would discover a single passage — I do not 
say by an eminent statesman or publicist, but a single 
passage by any body, the most obscure partisan — as- 
serting the right of a State, once in the new^ Union, to 
leave it at j^leasure. No such right was maintained in 
respect of the existing Union. The only way, I repeat 
it, in which the advocates of distinct confederacies 
hoped to carry out their theory, was by letting the old 
Union, already little better than a Avreck, go to pieces ; 
once embarked in the "more perfect Union," which 
they saw to be staunch, oak-ribbed and well manned, 
built on purpose to plough the vast sea of time, with E 
PluribU'S Unum emblazoned upon its star-spangled ban- 
ner — once embarked in this strong constitutional Union, 
they knew full well that the States must sail on to- 
gether, and share a common destiny. 

But even were it true that in forming this more per- 
fect Union, the American people had no distinct inten- 



16 

tlon that it sliould be perpetual, sucli appears very 
plainly to have been the intention of nature and Provi- 
dence. There's a divinity that shapes the ends of 
States as of individuals, rough-hew them as they will. 
The contingent and unconscious forces that imj)el a 
nation forward in its predestined j)ath, are hardly less 
important than those which proceed of deliberate 
choice and design. Had the authors of the Federalist 
foreseen that in less than half a century it would be 
easier to send a message from New- York to Portland 
or Savannah than it then was to send a message from 
iS"ew-York to Hoboken, that a journey from New- York 
to Philadelphia would be made in less time than was 
then required to go to a neighboring village ; had they 
foreseen that in less than three quarters of a century 
time and distance Avould be virtually annihilated, and 
the Atlantic and Pacific oceans brought, as it were, 
within sound of each other's voices, their arguments 
for the Union and the Constitution, founded upon 
the configuration of the continent and the designs 
of Providence, would have possessed to their minds 
all the force of a mathematical demonstration. The 
steamboat, the railroad, and the magnetic telegraph 
have already so reduced the scale of distances, and 
brought the remotest points of the Union into such 
neighborly relations, that the whole country is now in 
reality hardly less compact, and the different parts of 
its population in hardly less close connection with each 
other, than was the case with the Empire State and the 
different portions of its population on the day when 
Washington was inaugurated as our first President. 
These mighty instruments of national and social ad- 
vancement have facilitated the extension and onward 
march of the Republic, in a manner uncb'eamt of by 
the most far-sighted among its founders ; they have fur- 



17 

nislied inviucible reasons wliy it slioiild remain for ever 
one and indivisible, wliicli the boldest propliet of its 
future greatness would then have pronounced alto- 
gether visionary. This is only a specimen of Avhat 
time, or rather let us say, what Providence, has done 
to justify the wisdom of our sires. But, in truth, all 
the capital inventions and improvements, the whole 
progress of the past eighty years, whether in agricul- 
ture, navigation, manufactures, mining, and the me- 
chanic a,cts ; in education, in political and social sci- 
ence, in literature, in public journalism, or in the sphere 
of religion and Christian philanthropy — all have fallen 
in with the growth of the Union, adding at once to 
its power and beneficence. 

The American Union, I am aware, has l)een widely 
regarded by foreigners, and sometimes at home also, 
as an exceedingly artificial system; as having no 
proper centre ; and sure, therefore, sooner or later, to 
break in pieces. It has been supposed to be the 
product of mere political theory and calculation rather 
than the natural, organic development of national life. 
Whether or not this is so, is the momentous question 
now wavering in the l^alance. It does not become us 
to dogmatize too confidently upon a point which the in- 
exorable logic of events is hastening to decide. But 
for my own part I still hold, with unfaltering convic- 
tion, that our Union, as a whole and in all its parts, is 
in an extraordinary degree the genuine outgrowth of 
the race and the soil, and that it could not have been 
materially different from what it is without being in 
conflict with its own history and vital principles. It 
was ordained from the beginning to be a free, self-gov- 
erning, representative republic ; — a democratic, Christ- 
ian commonwealth. 

I do not believe there is a state in Christendom,, or 

2 



18 

that there was a state in the ancient world, not excepting 
Greece and Rome, marked by a more distinct or a more 
potential and exuberant individual life. Whether we 
'vatch it emerging on the Rock of Plymouth to take posses- 
sion of the continent, or at a later age see it, grown hardy 
by suffering and toil, rising up to wrest its independence 
from the strong arm of England, and then reorganizing 
its institutions and li1)erties in a new Magna Charta ; or 
follow it, still advancing in its wonderful career, during 
the past seventy years, it is always and every where the 
same free, progressive, self-reliant, practical and yet ideal 
power ; full of infinite resource and versatility ; honoring 
the past, master of the present, abounding in hope ; a 
power equally at liome in field and forest, in work-shop, 
counting-room or study, on land and ocean, around the 
fireside and at the altar — conscious of a great mission for 
the good of man and the glory of Grod, and resolved to 
fulfil it, let who and what will oppose. 

The finest personal character is one in which the 
spontaneous and voluntary elements, the fresh, genial 
impulses of youth and the reflective wisdom of age 
are most perfectly blended; or, to express it differ- 
ently, in which intelligent plan shapes and directs, with- 
out repressing, the w'arm, vital forces of the soul; for 
these are, so to say, the capital and reserved fund of 
all grand characters. Now the state has its peculiar 
life as well as the individual, and the perfect develop- 
ment of that life in both is subject to conditions not 
dissimilar. In the state, too, there sliould be a 
harmonious blending of the spontaneous and the de- 
liberate, wise counsel and choice, inspired by great 
national sentiments and traditions. I admit that in 
forming the Constitution of the United States there 
was a high exercise of political reflection and choice ; 
but it was reflection based upon a profound acquaint- 



19 

aiice with the history, institutions, and spirit of the 
country ; it was a choice full of purest zeal for the 
general good, a choice guided l;»y the public reason and 
actuated by the popular will, a choice and reflection, in 
fine, which embodied the inmost thought and desu-e of 
the whole nation; so that the Constitution is as real 
a product and exponent of the character and mind of 
the American people as the treatises on the Freedom of 
the Will and the Meligiou-s Affections are a true ex- 
pression of the intellect and piety of the great theo- 
logian of New-England, or as Paradise Lost is a fiaith- 
ful reflection of the epic genius of Milton. There is a 
sense, unquestionably, in which our system of govern- 
ment may be fairly described as artificial and compli- 
cate. But is not this true of the best thino-s in the 
world ? The higher you rise in the sphere of individ- 
ual or social life, the more numerous the elements and 
conditions of excellence, the more numerous the checks 
and counter-checks, the wheels within wheels. The 
life of a plant is far simpler than that of a bird ; the 
life of an insect than that of a child ; and the life of a 
child than that of a man. The nobler the life, the 
more its organs and modes of expression are enriched 
and multiplied. AVhat an exceedingly artificial and 
complicate piece of workmanship is the human eye ! 
It seems as if the Divine Artist himself must have 
paused to reflect and choose before fashioning such a 
peerless ^vindow for admitting and emitting light and 
beauty ! Consider any eminently original and per- 
fect type of character, Avhether of manhood or saint- 
liness, and I am sure you will find what I have been 
saying verified to the letter. Such a character is the 
rare product of varied forces ; and it impresses us with 
admiration, because it has had the will and the skill to 
combine and shape these varying, oft opposing, forces, 



20 

reason, understanding, fancy, sentiment, experience, 
age, country, circumstances, good and ill, into one 
symmetrical, finislied whole, into the living hero, pa- 
triot, or sage. Now the free State is, as I have said, 
the grandest work of man ; it is the hiding-place and 
strength of a nation's life, the house not made with hands, 
in which its successive generations find shelter, protec- 
tion, and a home, on their way to eternity. It es- 
tablishes for them justice ; insures their domestic tran- 
quillity ; provides for their common defence ; promotes 
their general welfare ; and secures the blessings of lib- 
erty to them and- their posterity. What a vast, pow- 
erful, and wisely-ordered system it must needs be to 
execute such a task as this without weariness, from age 
to age, even as the heavenly bodies move on in their 
benignant courses ! What strong diversities must 
help to form and buttress this sublime unity ! " Every 
free government " — I quote one of the weightiest sen- 
tences of Daniel Webster — " Every free government is 
necessarily complicated, because all such governments es- 
tablish restraints as well on the power of government 
itself as on that of individuals. If we Avill abolish the 
distinction of branches, and have but one branch ; if we 
will abolish jury trials, and leave all to the judge ; if 
we will then ordain that the legislator shall himself be 
the judge ; and if we place the executive power in the 
same hands, we may readily simplify government. We 
may easily bring it to the simplest of all forms, a pure 
despotism." 

But " the American Union," it is said further, " has 
no centre ,' and it is impossible now to make one. The 
more they extend their border into the Indian's land, 
the weaker will the national cohesion be."* This ob- 

* Coleridge's Table Talk, vol. ii. p. 53. He adds: "But I look upon 
the States as splendid masses, to be used, by and by, in the composition of 



21 

jectioii seems to me to overlook the peculiar constitution 
of American society, and the difference between a vis- 
ible, or formal, centre, and a central 'principle ; in 
other words, the principle of nationality. The latter 
certainly belongs to the Union in a very high degree ; 
and is not that the strongest bond of " national cohe- 
sion " ? So far from growing weaker, has it not gr<3wn 
more powerful as we have extended our l)order into 
the Indian's land ? Are Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, 
and Kansas, or even California and Oregon, less patri- 
otic than Maine, and New- York, and New-Jersey? 
Are the Alleghanies or the Rocky Mountains any l)ar- 
rier to the free, centripetal forces of the Republic 'i 
The truth is, the centre of our Union is everywhere ; it 
cannot from its very nature be strictly and fully local- 
ized ; it is, like our self-government, a diftusec), omni})res- 
ent principle, or, as is said of the soul, it is all in every 
part. And yet, in the ordinary sense of the term, has 
not the Union quite as much of a centre as Switzer- 
land, one of the oldest and toughest nationalities of 
Europe? But I have no time to dwell longer upon 
these points, although they merit a much fuller dis- 
cussion. 

Thus far I have spoken chiefly in terms of praise and 

two or three great governments." A few months later he says: "The 
possible destiny of the United States of America, as a nation of a hundred 
millions of freemen, stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, living 
under the laws of Alfred, and speaking the language of Shakspeare and 
Milton, is an august conception. Why should we not wish to see it real- 
ized ? America would then be England viewed through a solar microscope ; 
Great Britain in a state of glorious magnification." AVhat a contrast be- 
tween this generous catholic spirit and that which, since our troubles began, 
has breathed in the London Times, Saturday Fevieic, and other anti- 
American organs of English public opinion! The malicious glee with 
which this most influential section of the British press has calumniated, 
ridiculed, and mocked at the American people in this day of their calamil}', 
is a disgrace to the civilization and humanity of the age. 



22 

honor, as the purpose of my address naturally led me 
to do. But I am far, indeed, from thinking that oiir 
political system is perfect even in theory, much less 
that it has been so in practice. The best institutions 
are liable to be abused even as the very truth of 
God may be changed into a lie. Nothing in this world 
is perfect ; no work of man which is not tainted with 
moral evil and does not share in its dread penalties. 
The old providential laws are still in full force ; and no 
ofovernment is so well constituted or so stronsf as to be 
able to violate them with impunity. The conditions of 
true national prosperity are exceedingly severe, and 
they do not change. The divine Nemesis, which exe- 
cutes judgment upon the sins of states and nations, 
never stops to ask whether they bear the name of de- 
mocracy or of monarchy ; whether they belong to the 
Anglo-Saxon or any other race. Die Welt-gescliiclite ist 
das Welt-gericlit. It were folly to deny that during the 
last quarter of a century — not to go further back — vices 
of the worst sort have been preying upon our national 
life. The sacred ideas of law, government, and patriot- 
ism have suffered a fearful eclipse. A reckless, un- 
scrupulous and venal temper has shown itself in every 
department of public affairs. The energy of the moral 
forces of the State has been altogether inadequate to 
restrain or serve as a counterpoise to the high-pressure 
activity and excitement pf the material forces. The 
process of political degeneracy has been rapid and over- 
whelming. From standing very high in the estimation 
of wise and good men abroad, our country has l)e- 
come the object of wide-spread and growing dislike in 
the old world. The revolution of European public 
opinion respecting us, since De Tocqueville published 
his celebrated work, is something hard to be l:)elieved 
by any one who has not himself had occasion actually 



23 

to witness and feel it. The sins of old, worn-out des- 
potisms, it is alleged, have reappeared, full-blown, in our 
young republic. We have developed, it is said, a preco- 
city in political vice and corruption, which shows ])lainly 
that we are rotting l)efore we are ripe. That there lias 
been too much occasion for these grave charges, is indis- 
putable. I will not go into details. This is not the 
place ; nor would I like to trust myself to say all that 
might truly be said on this subject. I will merely 
mention, by way of illustration, the huge system of cor- 
ruption, bribery and swindling connected with the 
municipal government of our commercial metropolis and 
with the public legislation at Washington, Albany and 
elsewhere ; the scandal of repudiation, the rapidly- 
increasing sale of votes, the barbarous spoils-system, 
with the frenzied greed and scramble for office engen- 
dered by it ; the Border-ruffian scenes and elections in 
Kansas ; the vulgar and brutal outbreaks in Congress ; 
the dearth of eminent statesmen, and the multiplication 
of political demagogues ; the wholesale prosecution 
of the African slave-trade, under the protection of the 
American flag ; fillibusterism, Floydism, and the new 
gospel of the divine institution, beneficence and un- 
limited extension of negro slavery. These are some of 
the thino-s which have shaken the faith of forei2:n na- 
tions, and to a certain extent, our own faith, in the 
wisdom and perpetuity of our democratic institutions. 
They are evils which the founders of the Union neither 
foresaw, nor could provide against. They have sprung 
in part from that abuse of freedom which nothing but 
the highest popular virtue and intelligence can resist, 
and partly from causes lying deej) in human nature, in 
the circumstances of the country and the times ; and in 
all exercise of power by selfish, erring mortals. It is 
impossible rightly to understand the present crisis with- 



24 

out carefully studying tliem. They have been slowly 
and stealthily preparing the mine which has now ex- 
ploded with such terrific effect. It was in the abomin- 
able school of Mississippi rejDudiation in which he took 
his first lessons and made his earliest appearance in j)ub- 
lic life ; it was in advocating the immoral doctrine that 
" one generation can not bind another," that Mr. Jeffer- 
son Davis was trained to be the leader of a titanic con- 
spiracy for repudiating the government and constitu- 
tion of his country, with all the oaths and promises 
which bound him to it. It was in cheering on " the 
gray-eyed man of destiny," William Walker, and in 
splendid dreams of seizing Cuba and Central America, 
that other of these Southern leaders learned to think so 
lightly of stealing the property and assailing the life 
of our Union. What atmosphere but one laden with 
the malaria of political sophistry and corruption could 
have engendered that wholesale ])erjury on the part of 
our public men, especially ofiicers of the national army 
and navy, which has appalled Christendom ? To show 
what the new-fangled doctrine of slavery and its un- 
limited extension has done to demoralize the country 
and plunge it into this Red sea of trouble, would require 
a book instead of a passing sentence. Let us be thank- 
ful that the dreadful malady, of which these things are 
symptoms, is at last forced out upon the surface, and 
that we know now what it is and how to treat it. We 
see plainly that it is an evil ense recidendwn / no gentler 
method will conquer it. 

And this brings us to another point in our discussion. 

I have shown that the Union was intended by the 
people who formed it, and that it seems quite as clearly 
intended by nature and Providence to be perpetual. 
But the practical question, after all, is : Do the Ameri- 
can people now upon the stage, the trustees and usu- 



'Id 



fructuaries of this glorious heritage, intend that it shall 
be perpetual ? Are they resolved and able to execute 
the will of the generations that have gone before them, 
to cany out the designs of nature and Providence i or 
will they prove recreant to the tremendous charge ? 
Life and death are set before them : which ^\dll they 
choose ? The history of the world affords few instances 
in which a great peojole have been so distinctly sum- 
moned to face this awful issue. And a few months ago, 
it must be confessed, the most hopeful had reason for 
deep misgiving as to the result. It seemed almost as if 
the nation were really about to abdicate its imperial 
sovereignty, to l^are its bosom to the assassin's dagger, 
and so die in shame and despair. A kind of moral as- 
phyxia had seized it ; and there it lay, month after 
month, prostrate, and jeered at by the unnatural men 
whom it had brought up as children and crowned with 
its fairest honors ; its authority defied, its forts and 
arsenals seized, its money stolen, its renowned flag 
trampled in the dust, its credit gone, and all the world 
echoing to the scornful exclamation : The great Demo- 
cratic hubhle has hurst ! The model Reimblic is no more ! 
When in the early spring the correspondent of the 
London Times passed through New- York, he found the 
leading citizens, as he avers, in a state of easy indifler- 
ence, eating and drinking, marr^ang and gi^^ng in mar- 
riage, even as the prophetic word tells us it will lie at 
the coming of the Son of Man to judge the world. But 
we know very well now that all this was an illusion ; 
the dead calm which precedes the whirhvind. 

The nation was certainly perplexed in the extreme ; 
but this perplexity was the effect in part of its unsus- 
pecting, magnanimous temper, and partly of the mental 
confusion caused by the staggering blows of treason. 
All perplexity, however, was annihilated by the bom- 



26 

bardment of Fort Sumter. As tlie report of that ruth- 
less cannonade reverberated through, the land, it was as if 
the trump of God had sounded. The nation started up 
like a man inspired. Its self-consciousness, too long 
darkened by the strifes of party and absorption in ma- 
terial interests, returned again as tlie morning^ fair as 
the moon^ clear as the sun., and terrible as an arony ivitli 
banners. The old, ancestral spirit was reenthroned ; 
the seMsh passions, delusions and prejudices of years 
were swept away in an instant, and from that hour to 
this the loyal American people, lacing of one heart and 
one mind, have been marching right onward for the de- 
fence and salvation of the Republic. The assault uj)on 
Fort Sumter was not, of course, the cause, it was only 
the occasion of this miraculous uprising. During the 
whole winter the way had been preparing for it. The 
months of November and December, 1860, and of Jan- 
uary, February and March, 1861, will not easily pass 
out of the memory of the American peoj^le. They 
were the Valley Forge of our political history. How 
like a horrid incubus they pressed upon the popular 
heart ! Our manhood as well as our nationality seemed 
about to abandon us. We saw the Union going upon 
the rocks, piloted by a perjured band of wreckers ; we 
saw them tearing down the old flag and spitting upon 
it in disdain ; we heard them, as they betook them- 
selves to the boats, and hastened away to their con- 
federates, shouting in derision that the gallant ship 
which our fathers built to sail on for ever, was scuttled 
past help, and would never again ride the ocean wave ; 
we saw and heard all this. Yet the world moved on 
as aforetime ; no sign in the heavens betokened that 
the avenging thunderbolts were about to descend ; the 
triumph of mingled treachery and imbecility appeared 
complete. 



27 

AVliat a picture liistory will give of tliis period of 
crime, infamy, and cowardice ! Alas ! for tlie chief 
conspirators and their abettors when she shall one 
day draw them at full length, and set them in ever- 
lasting colors upon her awful canvas ! Well might 
they pray to have their names effaced for ever from the 
memory of the Republic ! 

The twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth days of April 
last seem to lie back many years, and the gloomy months 
preceding are as the days before the flood. Since No- 
vember, 1860, the nation has been taught, and has in a 
measui'e marked, learned, and inwardly digested great 
permanent lessons of truth and duty, which, under or- 
dinary circumstances, could hardly have been taught 
and learued in half a century. How plainly we now 
see that government is an ordinance of God, founded 
in eternal justice ; that it is not mere influence, nor 
moral suasion, nor moral reform ; but sovereign author- 
ity, armed with divine sanctions, and the sword of ven- 
geance ; that while light to the obedient, it is like light- 
ning to evil-doers ! How plainly we now see that to 
prostitute this great institution of God to purposes of 
political corruption, money-making, and self-aggrandize- 
ment, is a kind of sacrilege : it is as if the ordinance of 
marria2:e were converted into an instrument of lust and 
adultery ; we have learnt, too, that solemn oaths, un- 
less vivified by the fear of God, will turn to perjury 
when the day of trial comes, for which they are record- 
ed in heaven ; we have learnt that the price of liberty 
is, in very deed, eternal vigilance ; and that the neglect of 
their civil duties by the cultivated, wealthy, and influen- 
tial classes of society, whether from the mad pursuit of 
gain, love of ease, dislike to political noise and strife, 
religious scruples, or -whatever other motive, is a high 
offence ao-ainst the state and asrainst heaven. The 



28 

American people, iu a word, have been tauglit to see 
that government is something infinitely deeper and 
higher than the dogmas and trinmph of party, the 
election of Presidents, and all the outward forms and 
machinery of political action. Never were they better 
prepared than now to heed the exhortation of the old 
Puritan poet and patriot, George Wither : 

" Let not your King and Parliament in one, 

Much less apart, mistake themselves for that 
Which is most worthy to be thought upon ; 

Nor think tliey are, essentially, the State. 
Let them not fancy, that the authority 

And privileges upon them hestown. 
Conferred are to set up a majesty, 

A power, or a glory, of their own ! 
But let them know, 'twas for a deeper life. 

Which they but represent — 
That there's on earth a yet auguster thixot. 
Veiled though it be, than Parliament and King." 

And while the nation has laid to heart these general 
lessons of political truth and duty, how fast has it 
learnt to understand the strange events of the day ! 
What six months ago was deemed a problem too hard 
to solve, needs no solution now. What then puzzled 
the understanding of statesmen, scarce puzzles that of 
children to-day. Kead over the messages, speeches, 
sermons, and editorials about " coercion," which last 
winter flooded the land, and it will seem next to impos- 
sible that so short a period separates now and then. 
Never before, perhaps, did a nation make such rapid 
strides in tearing off the coils of political sophistry, 
casting aside selfish party issues, and educating itself for 
the sublime Avork of its own salvation. No thouo-htful 
person, it seems to me, can regard it otherwise than as 
a special providence of the Almighty, But yesterday, 
as it were, the whole country was thrown into a state 
of nervous ao;itatiou, and the ancient Commonw^ealth 



29 

of Virginia aroused to tlie highest pitch of angry ex- 
citement because of a rumor that one of the ccinis of 
Fortress Monroe was pointing inland! A great many 
guns of Fortress Monroe, as well as elsewhere in and 
about the " Old Dominion," are now pointing inland, 
and are likely to 2:)oint that way for a long time, not 
according to a vague rumor, but by the solemn" order 
and determination of the Government and people of 
the United States. But yesterday, as it were, coercion 
had been played with such a cunning and masterly 
hand, appealing now to the noblest sentiments of Christ- 
ian charity and patriotism, now to the natural horror 
of war and bloodshed, and then to fear, avarice, personal 
ambition, and party prejudice ; clothing itself now in 
the plausiljle dress of State Rights and constitutional . 
argument, and anon of political expediency — coercion, 
I say, had at length come to signify to myriads of wise 
and loyal citizens something most oppressive, reckless, 
and cruel. How many ym>Q and loyal American citi- 
zens do you think there noio are to whom coercion has 
any other meaning than rightful authority, government, 
the Constitution, the Union, and the enforcement of the 
laws ? But yesterday, as it were, the heresy of secession,, 
("a word," as the Kestor of the American Bar, Mr. 
Binney, has so happily said, " to drug the consciences of 
ignorant men who are averse to treason,") this baleful 
heresy, had stolen into the Legislative Halls and Cabinet 
Council of the country, squatting at first like a toad, to 
drop its poisonous suggestions into the luisuspecting 
popular ear, half-seducing the aged Chief Magistrate 
himself into its toils, then boldly avowing itself in pre- 
sence of the astounded nation, and challeno-ing the Gov- 
ernment to coerce or resist it ! What to the American 
people is " secession" noio — now that it has been com- 
pelled to throw off all disguise, stand up before the 



30 

world in its ^^I'^P^i' character, and enter upon tlie exe- 
cution of its long-laid plans ? It is what Satan ap- 
peared at the touch of Ithuriel's spear — a lying hend 
and rebel, a most crafty conspirator against sleeping in- 
nocence, against the hopes of humanity, and the right- 
eous order of the world ; a sjjirit of ambitious hate and 
disobedience, that " would rather reign in hell than 
serve in heaven," They regard secession, in a word, as 
a gigantic crime, without a parallel on this continent, 
and with few parallels in the history of the world ; a 
crime second only to that which should attempt to sub- 
vert the divine 2:overnment itself. It is a crime ao-ainst 
our canonized forefathers. It is a crime against the 
living nation. It is a crime greater still against un- 
born generations, and against the human race. Such is 
the opinion which the American people now hold of 
secession. They regard it as a deadly heresy in point 
of law, and as wicked treason and rebellion in point of 
fact. They believe that unless it is put down, both the 
constitution and the nation must perish ; that unless 
they conquer it, it will conquer and ruin them. In 
this faith there is little difference between the learned 
and the plain people ; between farmers, merchants, me- 
chanics, professional men and politicians ; between na- 
tive and foreign-born citizens ; between Roman Catho- 
lics and Protestants. In this faith some two hundred 
thousand of them, without respect of party, nativity, 
or religion, have willingly offered their lives to their 
country, and are already marshaled into the great 
army of the Union ; and hundreds of thousands more 
are ready to do the same. They look with horror 
upon the fruits secession has already borne, the crimes 
it has committed, the reign of terror it has instituted, 
and the merciless hypocrisy and falsehood by which it 
has deceived and precipitated into utter anarchy and 



31 

woe millions of the people. Tliey contemplate witli still 
deeper horror the prospect of its becoming, as it must 
and will if suffered to live, a consolidated military des- 
potism, based upon negro slavery as its corner-stone, 
actuated by a contemptuous hatred of free labor and 
free society, by boundless ambition and lust of territo- 
rial aggrandisement, and thus establishing itself as a 
foreign nation from the shores of the Chesapeake across 
the continent, holding the Gulf of Mexico and the 
mouth of the Mississippi, and dictating law to Cidxa, 
Mexico, and Central America. They would deem the 
abandonment of this immense territory to Spain or 
Austria a lesser calamity and peril. Hence it is, they 
have made up their mind, with the blessing of Almighty 
God, to put down this rebellion, liberate the loyal citi- 
zens of the South from its iron despotism, plant again 
the Stars and Stripes over every fort and city from the 
Chesapeake to the Kio Grande, or sacrifice their all in 
the attempt ; and this they have resolved to do, not in 
malice, not in revenge, not in wrath, but in defence of 
republican freedom, and as a solemn duty to themselves 
and their posterity. And never surely did the fires of 
patriotic devotion burn with a purer or more intense 
flame in the palmiest days of Greece or Rome, of Italy, 
Holland, England, or any other land rendered classic 
by struggles for freedom and national existence. The 
sentiment which glowed with such fervor in the heart 
of the pious Israelite finds a faithful echo to-day in the 
hearts of millions of the American people : If I fon 
get tliee^ Jerusalem ! let my right liand forget its 
cunning ; if I do not remember tliee^ let my tongue 
cleave to tlie roof of my mouthy if I prefer not Jerusa- 
lem above my cliief joy. They regard it as a sacred 
debt which they owe to the past and the future — a 
debt of gratitude to their honored forefathers, and a 



32 

debt of service to their posterity — to save this free, 
Christian Ee2:)nblic from the destruction which threat- 
ens it. They form the mystic bridge across Avhich, if 
at all, its untold treasures, accumulated l)y the toil, the 
blood, and the wisdom of many ages, must be conveyed 
to enrich and bless the generations yet unborn. For it 
is a radical mistake to fancy that the life-ancl-death 
struggle, in which we are now engaged, involves our 
political institutions merely ; it involves not less our 
domestic, social, and religious institutions. These are 
so vitally bound up with those, that it is not possible to 
separate them ; you might as well attempt to separate 
the heart or brain from the flesh and bones of the natu- 
ral body ; each is essential to the other ; each is ani- 
mated by the same inspired breath of freedom ; each 
rests upon the strong foundation of general law and 
order ; all together form our great Christian state, our 
national commonwealth. It is American ci\T.lization it- 
self, then, that is at stake. To me, at least, it seems as 
certain as the course of nature, that the nefarious heresy 
and rebellion which has plunged us already into such 
an abyss of trouble, would, if successful, utterly demo- 
ralize the spirit and character of the American people. 
It would be a blow to their Christian virtue and man- 
hood so staggering that a century could scarce enable 
them to recover from it. It would infuse a fatal poison 
into their moral life-blood. Reliction and learnino; as 
well as freedom and humanity, would never cease to 
weep over their fall. It is not only a question whether 
at the bidding of a band of detestable conspirators the 
American peoj^le shall divide their ancient inheritance 
and break in pieces the substantial unity of the na- 
tion; it is also and especially the question whether, 
directly or indirectly, they shall stamp with their ap- 
proval a doctrine and a crime, which laughs to scorn the 



33 

sanctity of oatlis, turns to mockery the obligations of 
covenanted faith, and places the existence of societ}'- it- 
self at the mercy of disappointed politicians and ambi- 
tious, profligate demagogues. Under certain circum- 
stances, at the entreaty of one of your children, you 
might reluctantly consent to a division of your es- 
tate, which yet you regarded as fraught with much 
evil to all concerned ; but would you do so, could you 
do so without utter shame and self-debasement, under 
the pressiu'e of a threat that if you did not, your i)a- 
rental authority should be set at naught, the old home- 
stead burnt to ashes, your other children defrauded of 
their rights, and the desired portion taken by force i 
After an arrangement based upon such terms, what 
would be likely to become of your domestic govern- 
ment ? How much dignity, order, and peace ; how 
much filial reverence, would henceforth mark your fam- 
ily life ? It seems to me, I repeat it, that the contest 
which has been so ruthlessly forced upon us, is as truly 
for our social and religious, as for our political blessiugs. 
There is not a single one of the great chartered rights 
and privileges, purchased for us by the toil and sacri- 
fices of the immortal dead, which is not imj^eriled by this 
rebellion. This may not appear on the surfoce ; but pene- 
trate to the heart of the matter and you will find that 
it is even so, nothing more, nothing else. Every nerve 
and fibre of American life is bound up with the life of 
the Union. The national government, viewed in the 
most formal and abstract way, is yet like the shell of 
the tortoise, which shelters, guards, and conserves the 
whole ora:anism within. "What would become of the 
living creature were this j^rotective covering crushed 
and torn oif ? And what would become of the vital 
organism of American society, with its thousand tender 
and sacred offices, if no longer sheltered and shielded 

3 



34 

by tlie Constitution and tlie laws, it were exposed to 
the assaults of tlie rude anarcliic elements ? Let us not 
delude ourselves. The 2>eril which besets us is a peril 
to all that we hold most dear. AVhether this free, 
Christian country, in whose earth sleeps the dust of so 
many wise and good men ; whose air has been vocal, 
from the landing of the Pilgrims until now, with the 
prayers and praises of innumerable saints ; whose his- 
tory has been so full of providence and so prophetic of 
a grand, benignant future ; which has already sent out its 
boughs unto the sea and its branches unto the river ; — 
whether it is to be handed do^vn to coming generations 
mutilated and dishonored, a mere fragment of its for- 
mer self, so that all the world shall mock at it, or, in un- 
shorn strength and beauty, a still mightier organ of 
human happiness and the glory of God; this is the 
momentous point now to be decided, and for whose de- 
cision the hosts of the republic have gathered them- 
selves to battle. 

I do not for an instant forget that war, above all, 
such a war as this, is an unspeakable calamity. It is 
enough to shake the stoutest heart to look it in the 
face. There are thousands of families in the farthest 
North and East, still more in the Middle and Western 
Free States, which are connected by innumerable ten- 
der ties of blood and affection mth every part of the 
South ; while in the States of Maryland, Virginia, Ken- 
tucky, and Missouri, not to mention others, the effect of 
the war has been, in the fearful language of Scripture, 
to set a man at variance against his father, and the 
daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law 
against her mother-in-law. And a man^s foes are they 
of his oiun household. It is a horrible thing ; and 
every good man must pray fervently that the days of 
this distress may be shortened, but shortened by the 






speedy trinmpli of tlie rigliteoiis cause and the restitu- 
tion of national authority throughout the length and 
Ijreadth of the land. Be this grand consummation, 
however, near or far off, be the path which leads to it 
through a narrow or a wide sea of trouble, the bless- 
ing will still be worth a hundredfold more than it will 
cost. Has it not been so in all our history and in the 
history of the race ? When was the vindication and 
triumph of a great principle unattended by heavy sac- 
rifioes ? When did Christian society make a large ad- 
vance mthout first vanquishing a host of enemies ? 
Think what it cost our fathers to fis^ht throuo;h the 
long w^ar of independence ; how much precious blood, 
how much personal and domestic suffering, what losses, 
what disappointments ! But then think what plentiful 
harvests of public and private blessing their children 
and children's children have been reaping from those 
bitter seeds all these threescore years and ten ! Re- 
member that we do not enjoy to-day a solitary civil 
or religious privilege which is not perfumed with the 
heroic and suffering \artues of fonner times ; not one 
which did not cost blood, treasure, and painful toil ; 
not one which would ever have been ours had not om- 
patriotic and godly ancestors lived not for themselves 
but for their posterity. It was not for themselves, it 
was for their children chiefly, that the Pilgrim Fathers 
and mothers became exiles in Holland, and then 
crossed the ocean to lay the foundation of an ampler 
order of humanity upon the desolate shores and in the 
savage wilderness of the new world. It was for us 
rather than themselves that the adventurous and brave 
settlers of Virmnia and New- York laid the foundations 
of commercial and political emj^ire. It was, in a word, 
for their children rather than themselves that all our 
fathers, of whatever name or nation, felled the aborigmal 



36 

forests, drove out the lieatlien "before tliem, and sowed 
1)roadcast over tlie continent tlie prolific seeds of Law, 
Eeligion, Freedom, Intelligence, domestic Joy, and virtu- 
ous Industry. It was for us tliat Washington, and all 
Ms sage and valiant compatriots, labored, struggled, 
thought and spoke. And what eminently wise and 
good men, in Church and State, have ever since been 
working on in the self-same spirit, still spending and 
Ijeiug spent for our sakes and not their own ! And 
now in turn the solemn task is devolved uj)on us. •We 
are summoned by Divine Providence to see to it 
that, in spite of all oj^position, the immortal work still 
goes forward. The task, I admit, is formidable l^eyond 
expression. Our fathers never encountered such a 
pitiless storm of sedition and treason as now beats upon 
us ; none of them ever faced a moment so big with 
issues, good or bad for the human race. If our Wash- 
ington himself, leaving for a while his eternal rest, 
should come back to be our Leader, and if the most 
renowned statesmen of his and later times, Hamilton, 
Jefferson, John Jay, Madison, Franklin, Pinckney, Mar- 
shall, Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, and the Defender 
of the Constitution, were to be his counsellors, their com- 
Tjined wisdom, unaided by tlie loisdom that is from 
ahove^ would not rise to the height of our troubles. 
Nothing, nothing but the guiding hand and inspiration 
of Almighty Providence can carry us triumphantly 
through this crisis. Assuming, as we fairly may, that 
our armies, under their aged and their youthful chief- 
tains, the illustrious Scott (God bless him!) and the 
gifted McClellan, w^ll wipe out the memory of the re- 
cent defeat and be crowned with complete victory ; as- 
suming that, their career is to be marked henceforth by 
all the discipline, valor, and humanity which we desu^e 
to see adorning our citizen-soldiery, still, what consum- 



37 

mate prudence and good sense, what honest tact, what 
magnanimity, what fairness and ecjuity, in a word, what 
thoroughly statesmanlike and Christian wisdom ^vill he 
required to readjust and settle the affairs of the nation 
in the right way ! Not less than that which brought 
order out of the chaos that preceded the first inaugura- 
tion of Washington. But the very magnitude of the 
task should stimulate us to tenfold zeal and effort so to 
perform it that our work shall be forever memorable 
and resplendent in the history of eminent, faithful ser- 
vice done, to God and man. It is a truly Apocalyptic 
contest, and we may well believe that heaven as well as 
earth is looking on mth eager eye. What the issue 
shall be, we know not; it is in the hands of God ; but 
the interests involved are so momentous, and the con- 
tending forces so gigantic, that the issue, be it what it 
may, must needs travel far and wide over the world 
and far down the track of time. It is an epochal pe- 
riod ; the very days and hours seem to fly past freighted 
with historic import. Beyond a doubt, it is a chief 
turning-point in our destiny as a people ; but whether 
the turning-point of destruction or of a new creation, 
we cannot tell. And yet, even at such a time as this, 
it is a primal duty to hope — especially, to ho2:)e in Him 
before whom all nations are as nothing. For one I 1 re- 
lieve we shall live and not die. I believe these agonies 
through which we are passing, are not of dissolution, 
l)ut the birth-throes of a renovated and higher life. I 
can never think that He, who led our fathers like a 
flock, is going to abandon us in this perilous hour. He 
has a thousand times more interest in this land than 
we have. He has been here fi'om the beginning. He 
will be here, with His church, long after we are dead. 
What hands l^ut His reared this vast asylum and city 
of refuge for the poor and oppressed millions of tlie 



38 

old continent ? What wisdom but His planned and 
planted here, midway between Asia and Europe, this 
growing Temple of Freedom and Humanity, this 
Pharos to all benighted and tempest-tost nations ? And 
will He now look on and see mad, rebellious hands raze 
it to the ground ? I cannot believe it. I cannot think 
He is going to destroy a country, which, however griev- 
ous may have been its faults and follies, was neverthe- 
less cradled in Christian faith, and is still the home of 
millions of men, women, and children, whose constant 
prayer is, that in all its parts, North and South, East 
and West, and among all classes of its poj^ulation, black 
or white, bond and free. His blessed kingdom may 
come and His will be done as it is done in heaven. 

Let us not, then, despair of the Re]3ublic. Let us 
abide steadfast in the faith that it will outride the pre- 
sent as it has outridden all lesser storms, and that, pu- 
rified and ennobled by adversity, " casting far from it 
the rags of its former vices," and insjiired more and 
more by the divine principles in which it was founded, 
it shall approximate ever nearer to the perfect ideal of 
a Free, Christian State, and armed with 

Sovereign Law, that State's collective will, 

O'er thrones and globes elate 
Sit Empress, crowning good, repressing ill. 




Cbe Jfrec C^rtstmn State anb iht |p«scnt .Struggle 




AN ADDRESS 



DELITERED BEFORE THE 



ASSOCIATION 



ALUMNI OF BOWDOIN COLLEGE, 



GEORGE L. "PRENTISS, 



A.TTGTTST 8, IPei. 



< NEW-YORK : 
JOHN A. GRAY, PRINTER, STEREOTYPER, AND BINDEK, 

FIRK-PROOK BUILDINGS, 

CORNKR OP FRANKFORT AND JACOB STREETS. 

1861. 






LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




